Core Glossary

08 Core Glossary — Philippians

Destination Language: Burmese (Myanmar)

Purpose

This glossary lists every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, across all four chapters of Philippians, with proposed Burmese renderings, risk tiers, doctrine linkage, and citation of source chapters. Terms marked [BASELINE] reuse the Romans translation_memory.json rendering exactly, per the hard rule that established renderings must never be altered. Terms marked [NEW] are proposed additions for the Philippians language package extension and must be reviewed and ratified in Phase 1 Step 2 before Phase 2 translation begins.

Risk tiers follow the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions exactly:

Critical — Mistranslation destroys essential doctrine; mandatory human theologian review every occurrence.
High — Significant theological confusion/syncretism risk; mandatory human theologian review.
Medium — Reduces clarity but preserves essential meaning; native speaker review recommended.
Low — Minor imprecision; automated review sufficient.

Glossary Table

#	English Term	Greek	Burmese Rendering	Transliteration	Risk	Doctrine	Status	Chapters	Notes
1	gospel	εὐαγγέλιον	သတင်းကောင်း	thadin kaung	High	Gospel / Partnership in the Gospel	[BASELINE]	1, 4	Reuse exactly; qualify as active partnership (κοινωνία) in the gospel’s advance, cf. 1:5, 1:12, 4:15.
2	grace	χάρις	ကျေးဇူးတော်	kyayzu-taw	Critical	Grace	[BASELINE]	1, 2	Root shared with ἐχαρίσατο (2:9, “graciously gave”) and ἐχαρίσθη (1:29, “granted/given” — suffering as gift).
3	faith	πίστις	ယုံကြည်ခြင်း	yun-kyi-chin	Medium	Faith / Righteousness by Faith vs. Law	[BASELINE]	1, 3	Object is Christ; central to 3:9’s law/faith contrast.
4	righteousness	δικαιοσύνη	ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း	pyaungmat-chin	Critical	Righteousness by Faith vs. Law	[BASELINE]	3	3:9’s twin righteousness clauses (from law / through faith) are the letter’s direct parallel to Romans 3-4; exact reuse mandatory.
5	law	νόμος	ပညတ်တရား	pyinnat tayar	High	Righteousness by Faith vs. Law	[BASELINE]	3	Mosaic Law, contrasted with righteousness through faith; never ဝိနည်း (Vinaya).
6	salvation	σωτηρία	ကယ်တင်ခြင်း	kaetin-chin	Critical	Salvation / working out salvation	[BASELINE]	1, 2	2:12’s “work out your own salvation” requires mandatory teaching note distinguishing outworking from earning; never နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း.
7	lord	κύριος	သခင်	thakhin	Critical	Lordship of Christ	[BASELINE]	2, 3	2:11’s confession must match Romans 10:9 pattern exactly.
8	jesus	Ἰησοῦς	ယေရှု	Yayshu	Critical	Lordship / Incarnation	[BASELINE]	1, 2, 3, 4	Standard form throughout.
9	god	θεός	ဘုရားသခင်	Phayarthakhin	Critical	Deity of Christ	[BASELINE]	1, 2, 3, 4	Never ဘုရား alone.
10	father	πατήρ	အဖ	a-pha	Critical	Sonship of Christ	[BASELINE]	1, 2, 4	2:11 “glory of God the Father”; never ဗြဟ္မာ.
11	holy spirit	πνεῦμα	သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်	thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw	Critical	Sanctification	[BASELINE]	1, 2, 3	2:1 “fellowship of the Spirit”; 3:3 “worship by the Spirit of God.”
12	church	ἐκκλησία (implied)	အသင်းတော်	athin-taw	Medium	Church as God’s People	[BASELINE]	1, 4	Local congregation with overseers/deacons (1:1).
13	saints	ἅγιοι	သန့်ရှင်းသူများ	thangyin thu myar	Medium	Sainthood	[BASELINE]	1, 4	1:1 “to all the saints”; 4:22 “all the saints.”
14	glory	δόξα	ဘုန်းတော်	phon-taw	High	Deity of Christ / Christ’s exaltation	[BASELINE]	2, 3, 4	2:11 “glory of God the Father”; 3:21 “body of his glory”; 4:20 doxology.
15	peace	εἰρήνη	ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း	nyein-thet-chin	Medium	Peace with God	[BASELINE]	1, 4	4:7 “the peace of God … will guard your hearts.”
16	fellowship / partnership	κοινωνία	မိတ်သဟာယ	meikthahaya	Low–Medium	Partnership in the Gospel	[BASELINE]	1, 2, 3, 4	Sense expands beyond baseline’s Romans usage to active gospel co-investment (1:5), sharing sufferings (3:10), sharing affliction (4:14) — same root term, broadened context; note in teaching material.
17	thanksgiving	εὐχαριστία	ကျေးဇူးတင်ခြင်း	kyayzu-tin-chin	Low	Contentment / Prayer	[BASELINE]	4	4:6 “with thanksgiving.”
18	david, israel, etc.	—	(not present in Philippians)	—	—	—	—	—	No OT proper-name occurrences requiring baseline reuse in this book.
19	self-emptying (kenosis)	ἐκένωσεν	မိမိကိုယ်ကို စွန့်လှတ်တော်မူခြင်း	mimi-koyko sunlot-taw-mu-chin	Critical	Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)	[NEW]	2	HIGHEST syncretism risk in the book. NEVER build on သုည (thonya, “void/emptiness,” the śūnyatā root) or အနတ္တ (anatta, “no-self”). Christ set aside the display/prerogatives of glory; he did not cease to be God or dissolve his essence. Mandatory theologian review every occurrence.
20	form of God	μορφῇ θεοῦ	ဘုရားသခင်၏ဇာတိသဏ္ဌာန်	Phayarthakhin i zar-ti-thanda	Critical	Deity of Christ	[NEW]	2	Use ဇာတိသဏ္ဌာန် (essential nature/form), not plain ပုံသဏ္ဌာန် (shape/likeness), to avoid idol-image (ဆင်းတု) associations.
21	equal with God	ἴσα θεῷ	ဘုရားသခင်နှင့်တူညီခြင်း	Phayarthakhin hnin tunyi-chin	Critical	Deity of Christ	[NEW]	2	Full ontological equality, not derivative/elevated-being status.
22	a thing to be grasped	ἁρπαγμόν	ဖမ်းဆုပ်ကိုင်ထားရမည့်အရာ	phan-souk-kaing-tar-ya-me-a-yar	Medium	Incarnation/Kenosis	[NEW]	2	Genuinely ambiguous Greek term; record alternative rendering (“to grasp at”) in segment cache per ambiguity protocol; flag for review given Critical doctrine context.
23	form of a servant/slave	μορφὴν δούλου / δοῦλος	ကျွန်၏ဇာတိသဏ္ဌာန် / ကျွန်	kyun i zar-ti-thanda / kyun	High	Incarnation / Humility	[NEW]	1, 2	Voluntary self-lowering by one with full divine standing; also used of Paul/Timothy’s self-identification (1:1).
24	found in human form	σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς	လူ့ပုံသဏ္ဌာန်အနေအထားဖြင့် တွေ့ရှိတော်မူခြင်း	lu pum-thanda a-nay-a-tar-phyin twe-shi-taw-mu-chin	High	Humanity of Christ	[NEW]	2	Real, verifiable physical humanness; not illusory manifestation.
25	humbled himself / humility	ἐταπείνωσεν / ταπεινοφροσύνη	မိမိကိုယ်ကို နှိမ့်ချတော်မူခြင်း / နှိမ့်ချသောစိတ်	mimi-koyko hnoke-chi-taw-mu-chin / hnoke-chi-thaw-seik	High	Unity and Humility in the Church	[NEW]	2	Must be voluntary self-lowering from genuine standing, not enforced social submission of an inferior; distinguish from Burmese hierarchical deference norms.
26	obedient unto death	ὑπήκοος μέχρι θανάτου	သေခြင်းတိုင်အောင် နာခံခြင်း	thay-chin tine-aung nakhan-chin	High	Incarnation / Obedience of Christ	[NEW, baseline-adjacent]	2	Shares baseline’s “obedience_of_faith” nakhan root; this is Christ’s own perfect obedience, the ground of believers’ obedience.
27	death of a cross	θανάτου σταυροῦ	လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင်ပေါ်တွင် အသေခံခြင်း	letwar-kaptai-daw-htwin a-thay-khan-chin	Medium	Incarnation / Atonement background	[NEW]	2	Established crucifixion vocabulary; retain the shame-of-a-slave’s-death connotation in teaching.
28	highly exalted	ὑπερύψωσεν	အထွဋ်အထိပ်တင် မြှင့်စားတော်မူခြင်း	a-htwet-a-htate-tin mya-shin-sar-taw-mu-chin	High	Christ’s exaltation / Lordship	[NEW]	2	Sovereign gift of the Father vindicating the eternal Son, not merit-earned elevation (contra ဘုန်းကံ).
29	Jesus Christ is Lord	κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός	ယေရှုခရစ်သည် သခင်ဖြစ်တော်မူ၏	Yayshu-khayit-thi thakhin-phyit-taw-mu-i	Critical	Lordship of Christ	[BASELINE REUSE, exact pattern]	2	Must match Romans 10:9 confession pattern verbatim per baseline’s cross-document consistency rule.
30	every knee shall bow	πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ	ဒူးရှိသမျှ ညွတ်ရမည်	du shi-tha-myar nyut-ya-me	High	Lordship of Christ	[NEW]	2	Cultural bridge (kneeling/prostration familiar) but object must be uniquely Christ, not extendable to images/venerated figures generally.
31	to live is Christ	τὸ ζῆν Χριστός	အသက်ရှင်ခြင်းသည် ခရစ်တော်ဖြစ်၏	a-thet-shin-chin thi Khayitto-phyit-i	High	Christian Identity in Christ	[BASELINE-ADJACENT]	1	Total identity-collapse into Christ; do not soften to mere importance.
32	joy / rejoice	χαρά / χαίρω	ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း	wan-myauk-chin	Medium–High	Joy in Suffering and Imprisonment	[NEW]	1, 2, 3, 4	Never conflate with ပီတိ (piti, meditative jhana-rapture); joy is relational (in Christ/others), persists through not by escaping suffering.
33	bonds / imprisonment	δεσμά	ချည်နှောင်ခြင်း / အကျဉ်းချခြင်း	chi-hnaung-chin / a-kyin-cha-chin	Medium	Joy in Suffering and Imprisonment	[NEW]	1	Pair with providence doctrine; avoid karmic-consequence framing of suffering.
34	suffer for Christ’s sake	πάσχειν ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ	ခရစ်တော်အတွက် ဆင်းရဲဒုက္ခခံစားခြင်း	Khayitto a-twet sin-yay-douk-kha khan-thar-chin	High	Joy in Suffering and Imprisonment	[NEW]	1	Uses ဒုက္ခ (dukkha); reframe explicitly as grace-given privilege, not karmic consequence to escape.
35	work out salvation	κατεργάζεσθε τὴν σωτηρίαν	ကယ်တင်ခြင်းကို ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်း	kaetin-chin ko saung-ywet-chin	Critical	Salvation	[NEW, baseline-adjacent]	2	Outworking of salvation already given (1:6, 2:13), never its procurement by effort; direct parallel to Romans grace/works warnings.
36	one mind / same mind	τὸ αὐτὸ φρονεῖν	တစ်သဘောတစ်နည်းတည်းထားရှိခြင်း	ta-thabaw-ta-nihi-tay thar-shi-chin	Medium	Unity and Humility in the Church	[NEW]	2	Christ-shaped shared disposition, not mere social harmony/conflict-avoidance.
37	vain conceit	κενοδοξία	အချည်းနှီးသောဂုဏ်ယူမှု	achinesnee-thaw gon-yu-hmu	Medium	Unity and Humility in the Church	[NEW]	2	Deliberate wordplay with ἐκένωσεν (emptying); note the contrast in teaching materials.
38	poured out as a libation	σπένδομαι	ယဇ်ကဲ့သို့ သွန်းလောင်းခြင်း	yaza-kabaw soun-laung-chin	High	Partnership in the Gospel / Christ-centered ministry	[NEW]	2	Distinguish from merit-transfer/spirit-propitiation libation practice.
39	rubbish / dung	σκύβαλα	အမှိုက်သရိုက်	a-hmite-tha-yite	High	Righteousness by Faith vs. Law	[NEW]	3	Retain rhetorical force (total worthlessness of self-righteousness), do not soften.
40	knowledge of Christ	γνῶσις Χριστοῦ	ခရစ်တော်ကိုသိမှတ်ခြင်း	Khayitto ko thi-mat-chin	High	Righteousness by Faith vs. Law	[NEW]	3	Relational knowing of a Person; distinguish from self-generated vipassanā insight-knowledge.
41	mature / perfect	τέλειος	စုံလင်သော / ရင့်ကျက်သော	soun-lin-thaw / yin-kyet-thaw	High	Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ	[NEW]	3	Never rendered with ပါရမီ (pāramī, cross-life perfections); Spirit-enabled maturity within one lifetime.
42	press on	διώκω	ရှေ့သို့ရှုလျက်ပြေးလွှားနေခြင်း	shay-tho-shu-lyet pyay-hlwar-nay-chin	Medium	Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ	[NEW]	3	Pursuit empowered by/responsive to Christ’s prior “laying hold,” not unaided self-effort.
43	the prize	βραβεῖον	ဆုလာဘ်	su-lat	Medium–High	Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ	[NEW]	3	Distinguish from merit-proportional reward (ကုသိုလ်ဆုလာဘ်); grace-secured goal.
44	citizenship (in heaven)	πολίτευμα / πολιτεύεσθε	နိုင်ငံသားခြင်း	nainggan-thar-chin	High	Citizenship in Heaven	[NEW]	1, 3	Present relational/legal status by grace, not a future deva-realm rebirth destination earned by merit; keep 1:27 and 3:20 renderings consistent.
45	conformed / transformed body	σύμμορφος / μετασχηματίζω	ဘုန်းတော်နှင့်ပြည့်စုံသော ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာနှင့်တူညီစေခြင်း	phon-taw hnin pyi-soun-thaw koyi-khanda hnin tunyi-say-chin	Critical	Resurrection (of believers, patterned on Christ)	[BASELINE-ADJACENT]	3	Real bodily transformation, not rebirth; reuses baseline δόξα/glory term.
46	contentment	αὐτάρκης	ရောင့်ရဲခြင်း / ကျေနပ်ခြင်း	yaung-yay-chin / kyay-nat-chin	High	Contentment in All Circumstances	[NEW]	4	Never conflate with ဥပက္ခာ (upekkhā, equanimity via desire-extinguishing); relational, Christ-dependent contentment.
47	who strengthens me	ἐνδυναμοῦντί με	ငါ့ကိုခွန်အားပေးတော်မူသောသူ	nga-ko khun-ar-pay-taw-mu-thaw-thu	High	Contentment in All Circumstances	[NEW]	4	Prevents 4:13 from reading as generic self-empowerment; source of strength is Christ, not self.
48	giving and receiving	δόσις καὶ λῆψις	ပေးခြင်းခံယူခြင်း	pay-chin khan-yu-chin	High	Partnership in the Gospel	[NEW]	4	Distinguish from merit-generating dana (ဒါန) to religious figures; this is grace-based gospel partnership between believers.
49	fragrant offering, acceptable sacrifice	ὀσμὴ εὐωδίας, θυσία δεκτή	မွှေးကြိုင်သောအနံ့ရှိသော လက်ခံဖွယ်ယဇ်ကောင်	mhway-kyaing-thaw a-nan-shi-thi let-khan-phwe yaza-kaung	Medium	Partnership in the Gospel	[NEW]	4	Thank-offering to a personal God, not ritual merit-offering.
50	overseers / deacons	ἐπίσκοπος / διάκονος	အုပ်ထိန်းသူ / သင်းထောက်	auk-htein-thu / thin-htauk	Medium	Church as God’s People	[NEW]	1	Local congregational offices, not monastic/sangha ranks.
51	slaves/servants (of Christ)	δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ	ခရစ်တော်ယေရှု၏ကျွန်	Khayitto-Yayshu i kyun	High	Christian Identity in Christ / Incarnation	[NEW]	1	Paul/Timothy’s self-identification; deliberate echo of Christ’s own “form of a servant” (2:7).
52	fear and trembling	φόβος καὶ τρόμος	ကြောက်ရွံ့တုန်လှုပ်ခြင်း	kyauk-yon toun-hluk-chin	Low	Sanctification	[NEW]	2	Reverent seriousness in outworking sanctification.
53	blameless	ἄμεμπτος	အပြစ်ကင်းသော	a-pyit-kin-thaw	Medium	Sanctification	[BASELINE-ADJACENT]	2	Builds on baseline “sin” term; Spirit-produced integrity, not merit-scale sinlessness.
54	lights in the world	φωστῆρες	ကမ္ဘာအလင်းရောင်များ	kabar a-lin-yaung-myar	Low	Sanctification / Witness	[NEW]	2	Visible witness metaphor.
55	sacrificial service	λειτουργία	အမှုတော်	a-hmu-taw	Medium	Christ-centered Ministry	[NEW, baseline-adjacent]	2	Avoid implying a distinct priestly caste; all believers’ service.

Doctrine-to-Term Cross-Reference Summary

Curriculum Doctrine	Primary Terms	Highest Risk
The Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)	ἐκένωσεν, μορφῇ θεοῦ, ἴσα θεῷ, μορφὴν δούλου, σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς, ὁμοίωμα ἀνθρώπων	Critical
Joy in Suffering and Imprisonment	χαρά, δεσμά, πάσχειν ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ	High
Unity and Humility in the Church	τὸ αὐτὸ φρονεῖν, ταπεινοφροσύνη, ἐριθεία, κενοδοξία	High
Righteousness by Faith versus the Law	δικαιοσύνη, νόμος, πίστις, σκύβαλα, γνῶσις Χριστοῦ	Critical
Contentment in All Circumstances	αὐτάρκης, ἐνδυναμοῦντί με, μεριμνᾶτε	High
Citizenship in Heaven	πολίτευμα, πολιτεύεσθε	High
Partnership in the Gospel	κοινωνία εἰς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, δόσις καὶ λῆψις, συγκοινωνήσαντές, σπένδομαι	High
Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ	διώκω, σκοπός, βραβεῖον, τέλειος	High

Notes for Phase 1 Step 2 (Translation Memory Update)

All [BASELINE] terms above are enforced exactly as recorded in the Romans translation_memory.json and require no further ratification.
All [NEW] terms require formal addition to an updated translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json before Phase 2 translation of Philippians may proceed, per the Pre-flight Checklist in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
The five Critical-risk new/adjacent terms (kenosis, form of God, equal with God, work out salvation, righteousness by faith vs. law reuse) must be routed to human theologian review on every occurrence without exception, consistent with the baseline’s escalation rules for Incarnation, Deity of Christ, and Grace-related doctrines.
The kenosis term (ἐκένωσεν) requires an explicit, permanent forbidden substitution entry: never render with any compound of သုည (thonya/śūnyatā-emptiness) or အနတ္တ (anatta/no-self), to be added to the “CRITICAL FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTIONS” list in the AI translation requirements document alongside the existing Romans forbidden-substitution list.

Critical Risk Terms

Christ

Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်
Transliteration: Khayitto
Doctrine: Christology

Established Myanmar Bible transliteration/compound term (‘the Anointed One’); pairs with jesus (ယေရှု) as ယေရှုခရစ်. Established since the Judson tradition per the baseline’s transliteration standards, formalized here as a standalone Philippians-package entry since Christ recurs constantly throughout the letter (used in nearly every chapter) and the baseline Romans TM only isolated ‘jesus’.

Conformed Transformed Body

Approved rendering: ဘုန်းတော်နှင့်ပြည့်စုံသော ကိုယ်တော်၏ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာနှင့် တူညီစေခြင်း
Transliteration: phon-taw hnin pyi-soun-thaw koyidaw i koyi-khanda hnin tunyi-say-chin
Doctrine: Resurrection Hope of Believers
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth)
Original: σύμμορφος / μετασχηματίζω
Category: Eschatology

Reuses baseline glory (ဘုန်းတော်) term. A real, historical, bodily transformation patterned on Christ’s own resurrection, never rebirth into a different existence within samsara. Philippians 3:21.

Equal With God

Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်နှင့်တူညီခြင်း
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin hnin tunyi-chin
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားသခင်ကဲ့သို့ဖြစ်ခြင်း (merely like God), ဘုရားသခင်ထံမှကောင်းချီးခံရသူ (a blessed/derivative being)
Original: ἴσα θεῷ
Category: Christology

CRITICAL: must convey full ontological equality already and eternally possessed. Never render implying Christ merely considered and declined seizing equality (the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation pattern), and never soften to a derivative, elevated-but-created status akin to a Brahma-realm deity. Philippians 2:6.

Father

Approved rendering: အဖ
Transliteration: a-pha
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: ဗြဟ္မာ
Original: πατήρ
Category: God

CRITICAL: never ဗြဟ္မာ (Brahma). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 1:2, 2:11 (‘to the glory of God the Father’), 4:20.

Form Of God

Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏ဇာတိသဏ္ဌာန်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i zar-ti-thanda
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားသခင်၏ပုံသဏ္ဌာန် (mere outward shape), ဆင်းတု-adjacent rendering (idol-image association)
Original: μορφῇ θεοῦ
Category: Christology

Use ဇာတိသဏ္ဌာန် (essential nature/form), never plain ပုံသဏ္ဌာန် (shape/appearance), to avoid the idol-image (ဆင်းတု/ဘုရားပုံ) association. Names Christ’s actual essential divine being, not a crafted representation of it. Philippians 2:6.

God

Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရား, နတ်သခင်
Original: θεός
Category: God

CRITICAL: never ဘုရား alone or နတ်သခင်. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Used throughout Philippians (1:2, 2:6, 2:9, 4:19, etc.).

Grace

Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတော်
Transliteration: kyayzu-taw
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်, ကံကောင်းခြင်း, ဝါသနာတော်
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation

CRITICAL: Never use ကုသိုလ် (kutho, accumulated Buddhist merit) or ကံကောင်းခြင်း (good karma/luck). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: shares its root with ἐχαρίσατο (2:9, the Father’s gracious bestowal on the Son) and ἐχαρίσθη (1:29, suffering itself granted as a gift) — never conflate with ကုသိုလ် even where grace appears in reward-language contexts.

Holy Spirit

Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်
Transliteration: thangyinthaw weinnyin-taw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ဝိညာဉ်, ဝိညာဉ်
Original: πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Category: God

CRITICAL: never ဝိညာဉ် alone or နတ်ဝိညာဉ်. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 1:19, 2:1 (‘fellowship of the Spirit’), 3:3 (‘worship by the Spirit of God’).

Incarnation

Approved rendering: လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း
Transliteration: lu-zarti khan-yu-chin
Doctrine: Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားလောင်းအဖြစ်မွေးဖွားခြင်း, နတ်ဆင်းသက်ခြင်း

CRITICAL: never ဘုရားလောင်းအဖြစ်မွေးဖွားခြင်း or နတ်ဆင်းသက်ခြင်း. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: this is the direct scriptural ground of 2:7’s ‘being found in human likeness’ (ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος).

Jesus Christ Is Lord

Approved rendering: ယေရှုခရစ်သည် သခင်ဖြစ်တော်မူ၏
Transliteration: Yayshu-khayit-thi thakhin-phyit-taw-mu-i
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Original: κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός
Category: Christology

MANDATORY EXACT MATCH with the baseline Romans 10:9 confession pattern (ယေရှုသည် သခင်ဖြစ်တော်မူ၏), with ခရစ် inserted per this verse’s fuller title. Verbatim consistency required per the baseline’s cross-document Theological Consistency Rule. Never append a softening footnote suggesting a lesser or delegated lordship (reject Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation pattern). Philippians 2:11.

Jesus

Approved rendering: ယေရှု
Transliteration: Yayshu
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ရှင်ယေရှု
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology

Standard Myanmar Bible form since the Judson translation. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Used throughout Philippians (1:1, 2:10, 3:8, etc.).

Kenosis

Approved rendering: မိမိကိုယ်ကို စွန့်လှတ်တော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: mimi-koyko sunlot-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)
Rejected alternatives: သုညဖြစ်သွားခြင်း (any thonya/śūnyatā-based compound), အနတ္တဆိုင်ရာ အသုံးအနှုန်း (anatta/no-self-based expression), ဘုရားလောင်းအဖြစ်မွေးဖွားခြင်း
Original: ἐκένωσεν
Category: Christology

CRITICAL, PERMANENT FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTION: never render with any compound of သုည (thonya, void/emptiness, the śūnyatā root) or အနတ္တ (anatta, no-self) — Burmese Buddhist metaphysics’ two core categories. Such renderings would be heard as Christ’s self-dissolution, echoing anatta, rather than his voluntary setting-aside of the outward display of divine glory and prerogatives while remaining fully God. Must always be paired with an explicit teaching note: ‘Christ did not cease to be God.’ Route to mandatory human theologian review on every occurrence, Philippians 2:7.

Lord

Approved rendering: သခင်
Transliteration: thakhin
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရင်, ဆရာသခင်
Original: κύριος
Category: Christology

Must convey exclusive supreme authority, not a merely respected teacher or earthly king. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 2:11, 2:19, 2:24, 3:8, 3:20, 4:5; 2:11’s confession must match the Romans 10:9 pattern verbatim — see jesus_christ_is_lord entry.

Name Above Every Name

Approved rendering: ခေါင်းရဲကူးအမည်ထက် ကြီးမြတ်သော အမည်တော်
Transliteration: descriptive phrase; no fixed transliteration
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ကျော်ကြားသောအမည် (merely a famous name), ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာရှိသောဘွဲ့ (an honorable title)
Original: τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα
Category: Christology

Functions as shorthand for the supreme divine name/title itself (κύριος, echoing YHWH/Isaiah 45:23), now openly borne by Jesus. Must never be flattened into merely a famous name or an honorable title, which would understate the assertion of Christ’s deity. Philippians 2:9.

Power Of Resurrection

Approved rendering: ကိုယ်တော်၏ထမြောက်ခြင်း၏ တန်ခိုးတော်
Transliteration: koyidaw i hta-myauk-chin i tankhoe-taw
Doctrine: Resurrection Hope of Believers
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth)

Combines baseline resurrection (ထမြောက်ခြင်း) and power_of_god (တန်ခိုးတော်) roots. Present experiential power flowing from Christ’s historical bodily resurrection, never rendered with rebirth/reincarnation vocabulary. Philippians 3:10.

Resurrection

Approved rendering: ထမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: hta-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း, ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း
Original: ἀνάστασις
Category: Eschatology

CRITICAL: never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း or ပြန်လည်မွေးဖွားခြင်း. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 3:10-11 (‘power of his resurrection’), 3:21 (believers’ bodies conformed to Christ’s resurrected body).

Righteousness By Faith Vs Law

Approved rendering: ပညတ်တရားအားဖြင့်ဖြစ်သော ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း / ခရစ်တော်ကို ယုံကြည်ခြင်းအားဖြင့်ဖြစ်သော ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyinnat-tayar a-phyin-phyit-thaw pyaungmat-chin / Khayitto ko yunkyichin a-phyin-phyit-thaw pyaungmat-chin
Doctrine: Righteousness by Faith versus the Law
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ကံ, သီလ
Original: δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ νόμου … τὴν διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ
Category: Salvation

Reuses baseline righteousness/law/faith terms verbatim (mandatory, no deviation). Direct parallel to Romans 3-4; the merit-culture collision documented in the baseline applies with full force here, intensified by Paul’s autobiographical Pharisaic credential list. Route for mandatory human theologian review on every occurrence. Philippians 3:9.

Righteousness

Approved rendering: ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: pyaungmat-chin
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ကံ, သီလ
Original: δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation

CRITICAL: Never use ကုသိုလ်ကံ (merit-karma) or သီလ (moral precepts kept for merit). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 3:9’s twin righteousness clauses (ἐκ νόμου / διὰ πίστεως) directly parallel Romans 3-4; exact reuse mandatory.

Salvation

Approved rendering: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kaetin-chin
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း, လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်း
Original: σωτηρία
Category: Salvation

CRITICAL: NEVER use နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း (attaining nirvana/neikban). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 1:19, 1:28, and especially 2:12 (‘work out your own salvation’) — see the work_out_salvation entry for the mandatory outworking-not-earning teaching note.

Work Out Salvation

Approved rendering: ကယ်တင်ခြင်းကို ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kaetin-chin ko saung-ywet-chin
Doctrine: Sanctification and Working Out Salvation
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ပြု၍ ကယ်တင်ခြင်းရယူခြင်း (achieving salvation through merit-making)
Original: κατεργάζεσθε τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίαν
Category: Salvation

CRITICAL — the single highest works/grace-collision risk in Philippians. Must always be taught as the outworking of a salvation already secured by grace (1:6, 2:13 ‘God who works in you’), never its procurement by effort; direct risk of mapping onto ကုသိုလ်ပြုခြင်း (merit-making) logic. Route for mandatory human theologian review on every occurrence. Philippians 2:12.

High Risk Terms

Citizenship In Heaven

Approved rendering: နိုင်ငံသားခြင်း
Transliteration: nainggan-thar-chin
Doctrine: Citizenship in Heaven
Rejected alternatives: နတ်ပြည်ရောက်ခြင်း (attaining a deva-realm rebirth destination)
Original: πολίτευμα / πολιτεύεσθε
Category: Eschatology

A present, permanent, grace-secured relational and legal status already possessed through union with Christ now, never a future merit-earned heavenly rebirth destination that could itself expire. Must be rendered consistently between Philippians 1:27 and 3:20.

Contentment

Approved rendering: ရောင့်ရဲခြင်း / ကျေနပ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yaung-yay-chin / kyay-nat-chin
Doctrine: Contentment in All Circumstances
Rejected alternatives: ဥပက္ခာ (upekkhā, equanimity achieved by extinguishing desire)
Original: αὐτάρκης
Category: Christian Living

Must be sharply distinguished from ဥပက္ခာ and from the broader Buddhist ideal of extinguishing desire through disciplined practice. Paul’s contentment is explicitly relational and Christ-dependent, a learned posture sustained by an external Person, not a self-achieved state of desirelessness. Philippians 4:11.

Every Knee Shall Bow

Approved rendering: ဒူးရှိသမျှ ညွတ်ရမည်
Transliteration: du shi-tha-myar nyut-ya-me
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Original: πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ
Category: Christology

Kneeling/prostration is a familiar devotional posture in Burmese religious life directed toward Buddha images, monks, and elders — a genuine cultural bridge for the gesture, but the object must be taught as uniquely the living, exalted Lord Jesus, never extendable to any other venerated figure or image. Philippians 2:10.

Fellowship Of Sufferings

Approved rendering: ကိုယ်တော်၏ဆင်းရဲဒုက္ခတော်တွင် ပါဝင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: koyidaw i sin-yay-douk-kha-taw twin par-win-chin
Doctrine: Suffering as a Grace-Given Gift
Original: κοινωνία τῶν παθημάτων
Category: Christian Living

Participation in Christ’s own redemptive suffering through union with him, not the impersonal, universal experience of dukkha common to all existence. Philippians 3:10.

Form Of A Servant

Approved rendering: ကျွန်၏ဇာတိသဏ္ဌာန်
Transliteration: kyun i zar-ti-thanda
Doctrine: Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)
Original: μορφὴν δούλου
Category: Christology

Christ assumed the very nature/status of a slave, the lowest social status within humanity. Must be taught as voluntary, chosen self-lowering by one who was Lord of all, not comparable to debt-bondage or hereditary caste status; supplies the manner of the incarnation. Philippians 2:7.

Found In Human Form

Approved rendering: လူ့ပုံသဏ္ဌာန်အနေအထားဖြင့် တွေ့ရှိတော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: lu pum-thanda a-nay-a-tar-phyin twe-shi-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Humanity of Christ
Original: σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος
Category: Christology

Emphasizes Christ’s genuinely real, physically verifiable humanness. Must never be rendered suggesting an illusory or spirit-manifested appearance, as in some Burmese folk-narrative accounts of miraculous births. Philippians 2:8.

Giving And Receiving

Approved rendering: ပေးခြင်းခံယူခြင်း
Transliteration: pay-chin khan-yu-chin
Doctrine: Partnership in the Gospel
Rejected alternatives: ဒါန (dana, merit-generating giving to monks/sangha)
Original: δόσις καὶ λῆψις
Category: Ministry

Grace-based gospel partnership between believers flowing from an already-established relationship, not merit-generating dana offered to a religious institution or holy person in exchange for spiritual benefit — the central merit-generating act of Burmese Buddhist lay religious life. Philippians 4:15.

Glory

Approved rendering: ဘုန်းတော်
Transliteration: phon-taw
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းကံ
Original: δόξα
Category: God

Never ဘုန်းကံ (merit-power). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 2:11 (‘glory of God the Father’), 3:19, 3:21 (‘body of his glory’), 4:20 doxology.

Gospel

Approved rendering: သတင်းကောင်း
Transliteration: thadin kaung
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: ဓမ္မသတင်း, ကောင်းသောအကြောင်းအရာ
Original: εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Salvation

Established Myanmar Bible term meaning ‘good news’. Must be qualified as the unique announcement of salvation through Christ, not any generic positive report. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 1:5, 1:7, 1:12, 1:16, 1:27, 2:22, 4:3, 4:15 — anchors the Partnership in the Gospel doctrine as active, shared gospel investment, not passive goodwill.

Highly Exalted

Approved rendering: အထွဋ်အထိပ်တင် မြှင့်စားတော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: a-htwet-a-htate-tin mya-shin-sar-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Christ’s Exaltation
Rejected alternatives: ဘုန်းကံရသည်ဟု ဆိုနိုင်သောအသုံးအနှုန်း (merit-earned elevation)
Original: ὑπερύψωσεν
Category: Christology

The Father’s sovereign gift and vindication of the eternal Son, not merit-earned elevation comparable to ဘုန်းကံ (merit-power accruing to a monk or king through religious performance). Philippians 2:9.

Holy

Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသော
Transliteration: thangyin-thaw
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: စင်ကြယ်သော

Set apart for God and morally pure, not ritual/ceremonial cleanliness. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: underlies ‘saints’ (ἅγιοι, 1:1, 4:22) as those set apart in Christ.

Humility

Approved rendering: နှိမ့်ချသောစိတ် / မိမိကိုယ်ကို နှိမ့်ချတော်မူခြင်း
Transliteration: hnoke-chi-thaw-seik / mimi-koyko hnoke-chi-taw-mu-chin
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: ταπεινοφροσύνη / ἐταπείνωσεν
Category: Church

In Burmese social hierarchy, self-lowering is expected of social inferiors toward superiors (junior to elder, layperson to monk) and can be misread as enforced submission. Must be taught as a voluntary Christlike disposition freely chosen by one who, like Christ, has genuine standing to claim — humility chosen from strength, not imposed from weakness. Philippians 2:3, 2:8.

Joy

Approved rendering: ဝမ်းမြောက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: wan-myauk-chin
Doctrine: Joy in Suffering and Imprisonment
Rejected alternatives: ပီတိ (piti, meditative jhāna-rapture)
Original: χαρά / χαίρω
Category: Christian Living

Relational joy grounded in Christ and in others, not a private or self-generated meditative-attainment state; persists through, not by escaping, suffering. Anchor term of the letter’s central paradox. Philippians 1:4, 1:18, 1:25, 2:2, 4:4.

Knowledge Of Christ

Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်ကို သိမှတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: Khayitto ko thi-mat-chin
Doctrine: Knowledge of Christ Surpassing All
Rejected alternatives: ဝိပဿနာဉာဏ် (vipassanā-ñāṇa self-generated insight-knowledge), ဉာဏ်တော်ရရှိခြင်း (attaining the Buddha’s enlightened insight)
Original: γνῶσις Χριστοῦ
Category: Faith

Relational, personal knowledge of a self-revealing Person, surpassing all other value; not self-generated insight attained through one’s own disciplined meditative introspection. Philippians 3:8, 3:10.

Law

Approved rendering: ပညတ်တရား
Transliteration: pyinnat tayar
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: ဝိနည်း
Original: νόμος
Category: Covenant

Mosaic Law. ဝိနည်း specifically names the Buddhist monastic Vinaya and must be kept distinct. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 3:5-9 contrasts confidence in law-righteousness with righteousness through faith.

Mature Perfect

Approved rendering: စုံလင်သော / ရင့်ကျက်သော
Transliteration: soun-lin-thaw / yin-kyet-thaw
Doctrine: Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ
Rejected alternatives: ပါရမီ (pāramī, ten perfections cultivated across countless lifetimes)
Original: τέλειος
Category: Sanctification

PERMANENT FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTION: never render with ပါရမီ or any cognate. Spirit-enabled maturity pursued within a single lifetime toward a goal secured by Christ’s resurrection, not merit-perfections accumulated across a chain of rebirths. Philippians 3:12, 3:15.

Obedience Of Faith

Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း၏နာခံမှု
Transliteration: yunkyichin i nakhan-hmu
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Rejected alternatives: သီလလိုက်နာခြင်း

Obedience flowing from faith, not merit-building precept-keeping. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: shares its နာခံ (nakhan) root with 2:8’s ‘obedient unto death’ (Christ’s own perfect obedience, the ground of believers’ obedience-of-faith) — see obedient_unto_death entry.

Obedient Unto Death

Approved rendering: သေခြင်းတိုင်အောင် နာခံခြင်း
Transliteration: thay-chin tine-aung nakhan-chin
Doctrine: Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)
Original: γενόμενος ὑπήκοος μέχρι θανάτου
Category: Christology

Shares the baseline obedience_of_faith’s နာခံ (nakhan) root; this is Christ’s own perfect obedience, the ground of believers’ obedience-of-faith, not a separate concept. Philippians 2:8.

Poured Out As Libation

Approved rendering: ယဇ်ကဲ့သို့ ငါ့ကိုသွန်းလောင်းရသော်လည်း
Transliteration: yaza-kabaw nga-ko soun-laung-ya-thaw-lae
Doctrine: Suffering as a Grace-Given Gift
Original: σπένδομαι
Category: Ministry

Distinguish from merit-transfer or spirit-propitiation libation practices in Burmese Buddhist and animist/nat-propitiation contexts; a willing sacrificial gift to God completing an already-secured relationship. Philippians 2:17.

Power Of God

Approved rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏တန်ခိုးတော်
Transliteration: Phayarthakhin i tankhoe-taw
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး

Never အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး (relic/amulet potency). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: shares its တန်ခိုးတော် root with 3:10’s ‘power of his resurrection’ — see power_of_resurrection entry.

Rubbish

Approved rendering: အမှိုက်သရိုက်
Transliteration: a-hmite-tha-yite
Doctrine: Righteousness by Faith versus the Law
Rejected alternatives: တန်ဖိုးနည်းသောအရာများ (things of little value — rejected softened euphemism)
Original: σκύβαλα
Category: Salvation

Paul’s deliberately crude, forceful term for the total worthlessness of his own former self-righteous credentials, set against knowing Christ — a direct rhetorical assault on merit-accumulation (ကုသိုလ်စုဆောင်းခြင်း) logic. Must never be softened. Philippians 3:8.

Sanctification

Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း
Transliteration: thangyin-chin
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: ရေချိုးသန့်စင်ခြင်း

The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: underlies 2:12-15’s ‘work out your salvation … blameless’ passage, distinct from self-directed moral self-improvement.

Servants Of Christ

Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်ယေရှု၏ကျွန်
Transliteration: Khayitto-Yayshu i kyun
Doctrine: Servanthood and Christian Calling
Original: δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
Category: Christian Identity

Paul and Timothy’s self-identification, deliberately echoing Christ’s own ‘form of a servant’ (2:7); an honored, voluntary identity, not the degradation of imposed chattel or debt-bondage slavery historically practiced in the region. Philippians 1:1.

Sin

Approved rendering: အပြစ်
Transliteration: a-pyit
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: အကုသိုလ်

Moral transgression against a personal God, not အကုသိုလ် (demerit). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: underlies ‘blameless’ (ἄμεμπτος, 2:15), which must not imply a merit-scale of accumulated sinlessness.

Suffer For Christ

Approved rendering: ခရစ်တော်အတွက် ဆင်းရဲဒုက္ခခံစားခြင်း
Transliteration: Khayitto a-twet sin-yay-douk-kha khan-thar-chin
Doctrine: Suffering as a Grace-Given Gift
Original: τὸ ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ πάσχειν
Category: Christian Living

Pairs ဆင်းရဲဒုက္ခ (dukkha, the First Noble Truth term) with grace/gift language (ἐχαρίσθη); this suffering is a grace-given privilege of gospel partnership, not karmic consequence to be escaped through detachment. Philippians 1:29.

The Prize

Approved rendering: ဆုလာဘ်
Transliteration: su-lat
Doctrine: Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ
Rejected alternatives: ကုသိုလ်ဆုလာဘ် (merit-proportional reward)
Original: βραβεῖον
Category: Eschatology

Must be taught as the grace-secured inheritance/goal of the upward call in Christ Jesus, not a reward earned in proportion to one’s own religious achievement. Philippians 3:14.

To Live Is Christ

Approved rendering: အသက်ရှင်ခြင်းသည် ခရစ်တော်ဖြစ်၏
Transliteration: a-thet-shin-chin thi Khayitto-phyit-i
Doctrine: Christian Identity in Christ
Rejected alternatives: ခရစ်တော်သည် ငါ့ဘဝအတွက် အရေးကြီးသည် (Christ is important to my life)
Original: τὸ ζῆν Χριστός
Category: Christian Identity

Asserts total identity-collapse into Christ, comparable in force to Romans 6’s ‘in Christ’ union language. Must never be softened into mere importance-language. Philippians 1:21.

Who Strengthens Me

Approved rendering: ငါ့ကိုခွန်အားပေးတော်မူသောသူ
Transliteration: nga-ko khun-ar-pay-taw-mu-thaw-thu
Doctrine: Contentment in All Circumstances
Original: ἐνδυναμοῦντί με
Category: Christian Living

Prevents Philippians 4:13 from being read as a generic self-help/self-empowerment slogan rather than dependence on Christ; must never be excerpted apart from this clause. Philippians 4:13.

Medium Risk Terms

A Thing To Be Grasped

Approved rendering: ဖမ်းဆုပ်ကိုင်ထားရမည့်အရာ
Transliteration: phan-souk-kaing-tar-ya-me-a-yar
Doctrine: Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)
Rejected alternatives: ဖမ်းဆွဲရမည့်အရာ (to grasp at — recorded ambiguity alternative per protocol)
Original: ἁρπαγμόν
Category: Christology

ἁρπαγμόν is genuinely ambiguous in Greek scholarship (grasp at vs. hold onto/exploit). Approved rendering: a status Christ did not exploit for his own advantage. Record ‘grasp at’ as the alternative in the segment cache and flag for review given the Critical deity-of-Christ doctrine it touches. Philippians 2:6.

Anxiety

Approved rendering: စိုးရိမ်ပူပန်ခြင်း
Transliteration: soe-yein-pu-pan-chin
Doctrine: Contentment in All Circumstances
Original: μεριμνᾶτε
Category: Christian Living

Must be paired correctly with the prayer/thanksgiving instruction so anxiety-removal is understood as flowing from trust in God, not stoic self-mastery. Philippians 4:6.

Blameless

Approved rendering: အပြစ်ကင်းသော
Transliteration: a-pyit-kin-thaw
Doctrine: Sanctification and Working Out Salvation
Original: ἄμεμπτος
Category: Sanctification

Builds on the baseline sin term (အပြစ်); must not imply a merit-scale of accumulated blamelessness — this is Spirit-produced integrity, not a self-achieved sinless record. Philippians 2:15.

Bonds Imprisonment

Approved rendering: ချည်နှောင်ခြင်း / အကျဉ်းချခြင်း
Transliteration: chi-hnaung-chin / a-kyin-cha-chin
Doctrine: Joy in Suffering and Imprisonment
Original: δεσμά
Category: Christian Living

Paul’s literal Roman imprisonment, reframed as advancing the gospel; pair with providence doctrine, avoid karmic-consequence framing of suffering. Philippians 1:7, 1:13-14, 1:17.

Church

Approved rendering: အသင်းတော်
Transliteration: athin-taw
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: ဘုရားကျောင်း, ဘုရားရိပ်သာ
Original: ἐκκλησία (implied)
Category: Church

Never ဘုရားကျောင်း/ဘုရားရိပ်သာ. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: the local congregation addressed throughout, with recognized overseers and deacons (1:1).

Compassion

Approved rendering: ကရုဏာနှင့်သနားခြင်း
Transliteration: karuna hnin thanar-chin
Doctrine: Fellowship of the Spirit and Christian Affection
Original: σπλάγχνα καὶ οἰκτιρμοί
Category: Church

ကရုဏာ is a shared cognate with Buddhist brahmavihara compassion vocabulary; teach that this compassion flows from union with Christ, not a cultivated meditative attitude generated apart from a personal God. Philippians 2:1.

Count Others More Significant

Approved rendering: မိမိထက် သာလွန်သည်ဟု ထင်မှတ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: mimi-htet thar-lun-thi-ho htin-mat-chin
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: ὑπερέχοντας ἑαυτῶν
Category: Church

Direct behavioral outworking of the mind of Christ; moderate risk of being read as mere politeness rather than genuine valuing of others. Philippians 2:3.

Death Of A Cross

Approved rendering: လက်ဝါးကပ်တိုင်ပေါ်တွင် အသေခံခြင်း
Transliteration: letwar-kaptai-daw-htwin a-thay-khan-chin
Doctrine: Incarnation and Self-Emptying of Christ (Kenosis)
Original: θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ
Category: Christology

Established crucifixion vocabulary with low divergence risk across mainstream Myanmar translations. Retain the shame-of-a-slave’s-death connotation in teaching, completing the ‘form of a slave’ theme from Philippians 2:7.

Faith

Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း
Transliteration: yun-kyi-chin
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: သဒ္ဓါတရား
Original: πίστις
Category: Faith

Object of faith must always be specified as Christ, not left generic. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: central to 3:9’s law/faith righteousness contrast and 1:27’s ‘faith of the gospel’.

Fellowship Of The Spirit

Approved rendering: ဝိညာဉ်တော်၏မိတ်သဟာယ
Transliteration: weinnyin-taw i meikthahaya
Doctrine: Fellowship of the Spirit and Christian Affection
Original: κοινωνία πνεύματος
Category: Church

Must convey the Spirit’s own active bond uniting believers, not mere social camaraderie. Philippians 2:1.

Fragrant Offering

Approved rendering: မွှေးကြိုင်သောအနံ့ရှိသော လက်ခံဖွယ်ယဇ်ကောင်
Transliteration: mhway-kyaing-thaw a-nan-shi-thi let-khan-phwe yaza-kaung
Doctrine: Partnership in the Gospel
Original: ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας, θυσίαν δεκτήν
Category: Ministry

Distinct from merit-offering/libation practice; a relational thank-offering to a personal God who already fully accepts the giver, not a ritual act that earns acceptance. Philippians 4:18.

Have This Mind

Approved rendering: ဤသဘောထားကို သင်တို့တွင် ရှိစေကြလော့
Transliteration: thi thabaw-htar ko sin-do twin shi-say-kya-lot
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: τοῦτο φρονεῖτε
Category: Christology

Hinge verse (2:5) introducing the Christ-hymn as the paradigm for communal disposition; must be rendered as an active, cultivated disposition, not a passive feeling.

One Mind

Approved rendering: တစ်သဘောတစ်နည်းတည်း ထားရှိခြင်း
Transliteration: ta-thabaw-ta-nihi-tay thar-shi-chin
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: τὸ αὐτὸ φρονεῖν / τὸ ἓν φρονοῦντες
Category: Church

Christ-shaped shared disposition, not mere social harmony maintained to avoid conflict — a strong Burmese cultural value that can substitute for genuine doctrinal unity. Philippians 2:2.

Overseers

Approved rendering: အုပ်ထိန်းသူ
Transliteration: auk-htein-thu
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Service
Rejected alternatives: ဆရာတော် (senior-monk/abbot term)
Original: ἐπίσκοπος
Category: Church

Congregational shepherding office; avoid any term suggesting the Buddhist monastic abbot role or hierarchical sangha authority. Philippians 1:1.

Partnership In Gospel

Approved rendering: သတင်းကောင်း၌ မိတ်သဟာယဖြစ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: thadin-kaung ne meikthahaya phyit-chin
Doctrine: Partnership in the Gospel
Original: κοινωνία εἰς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον
Category: Ministry

Must convey active, ongoing partnership/co-investment (including financial support, cf. 4:15), not passive social fellowship. Philippians 1:5, 1:7.

Peace

Approved rendering: ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Transliteration: nyein-thet-chin
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: ကိလေသာငြိမ်းခြင်း
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation

Distinguish from ကိလေသာငြိမ်းခြင်း (meditative stilling of defilements). Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 4:7 (‘the peace of God … will guard your hearts’), 4:9.

Press On

Approved rendering: ရှေ့သို့ရှုလျက် ပြေးလွှားနေခြင်း
Transliteration: shay-tho-shu-lyet pyay-hlwar-nay-chin
Doctrine: Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ
Original: διώκω
Category: Eschatology

Must be taught as pursuit of a Person who has already laid hold of the pursuer (v.12) — grace-empowered pursuit, not self-effort toward self-attainment. Philippians 3:12, 3:14.

Sacrificial Service

Approved rendering: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း၏အမှုတော်
Transliteration: yunkyichin i a-hmu-taw
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Service
Original: λειτουργία
Category: Ministry

Reuses the baseline faith (ယုံကြည်ခြင်း) root; avoid vocabulary implying a formal priestly caste distinct from ordinary believers’ service. Philippians 2:17, 2:30.

Saints

Approved rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသူများ
Transliteration: thangyin thu myar
Doctrine: Sainthood
Rejected alternatives: ရဟန္တာ, ရှင်ရဟန်း
Original: ἅγιοι
Category: Church

Not an ascetic elite comparable to a ရဟန္တာ. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 1:1 (‘to all the saints’), 4:22.

Shared In Affliction

Approved rendering: ငါ၏ဒုက္ခတွင် ပါဝင်ဆောင်ရွက်ကြသည်
Transliteration: nga i douk-kha-twin par-win-saung-ywet-kya-thi
Doctrine: Partnership in the Gospel
Original: συγκοινωνήσαντές
Category: Ministry

Builds on the fellowship/koinōnia root; reinforces the partnership-in-the-gospel doctrine through concrete financial/material participation. Philippians 4:14.

Vain Conceit

Approved rendering: အချည်းနှီးသော ဂုဏ်ယူမှု
Transliteration: achinesnee-thaw gon-yu-hmu
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: κενοδοξία
Category: Church

Deliberately echoes ἐκένωσεν (v.7) in the Greek wordplay contrasting empty self-glorification with Christ’s self-emptying; Burmese cannot reproduce the pun directly, so preserve the contrast in teaching notes. Philippians 2:3.

Low Risk Terms

Caesars Household

Approved rendering: ကဲသာ့ အိမ်ထောင်စု
Transliteration: Kaysar aiktaung-su
Doctrine: Historical Figures

4:22. ‘Caesar’ transliterated as an established historical/political proper noun; ‘household’ paraphrased with ordinary Burmese kinship-unit vocabulary; no religious content at stake.

Circumcision

Approved rendering: အရေဖျားလှီးခြင်း
Transliteration: a-yay-phyar-hlee-chin
Doctrine: Righteousness by Faith versus the Law
Original: περιτομή
Category: Covenant

Established Myanmar Bible term. Paul’s former confidence in Jewish covenant identity, now among the ‘confidences in the flesh’ rejected. Philippians 3:5.

Clement

Approved rendering: ကလေမင်တု
Transliteration: Kalay-main-tu
Doctrine: Historical Figures

Proper name, 4:3; a fellow-worker of Paul’s.

Comfort In Christ

Approved rendering: တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်ခြင်း (ခရစ်တော်၌)
Transliteration: taik-tun hnoso-chin (Khayitto ne)
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: παράκλησις ἐν Χριστῷ
Category: Church

Builds on the baseline exhort verbal root; must retain ‘in Christ’ as the ground of the comfort, not generic encouragement. Philippians 2:1.

Consolation Of Love

Approved rendering: မေတ္တာမှဖြစ်သော နှစ်သိမ့်မှု
Transliteration: mate-tta hma-phyit-thaw hnas-thein-hmu
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Rejected alternatives: မေတ္တာဘာဝနာမှ ရရှိသောစိတ်ချမ်းသာမှု (metta-meditation-derived comfort)
Original: παραμύθιον ἀγάπης
Category: Church

Avoid presenting the source as self-cultivated Buddhist metta meditation; here love is Christ’s love mediated through the church, not a self-generated meditative state. Philippians 2:1.

Crown

Approved rendering: သရဖူ
Transliteration: thara-phu
Doctrine: Partnership in the Gospel
Original: στέφανος
Category: Christian Living

Victor’s wreath/crown; the Philippians themselves are Paul’s reward. Philippians 4:1.

Deacons

Approved rendering: သင်းထောက်
Transliteration: thin-htauk
Doctrine: Church Leadership and Service
Original: διάκονος
Category: Church

Established Myanmar church usage; low risk. Philippians 1:1.

Epaphroditus

Approved rendering: ဧပဖြောဒိတု
Transliteration: Epaphrawditu
Doctrine: Historical Figures

Proper name, 2:25-30; the Philippians’ messenger who risked his life for Paul (see risking_life entry).

Euodia

Approved rendering: ယုဒိ
Transliteration: Yudi
Doctrine: Historical Figures

Proper name of a believer in the Philippian congregation, 4:2-3.

Fear And Trembling

Approved rendering: ကြောက်ရွံ့တုန်လှုပ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kyauk-yon toun-hluk-chin
Doctrine: Sanctification and Working Out Salvation
Original: φόβος καὶ τρόμος
Category: Sanctification

Reverent awe and seriousness in outworking sanctification. Philippians 2:12.

Fellowship

Approved rendering: မိတ်သဟာယ
Transliteration: meikthahaya
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: သူငယ်ချင်းဖွဲ့ခြင်း
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church

Shared participation in Christ, deeper than ordinary friendship. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: root term expands to cover gospel partnership (1:5), Spirit-fellowship (2:1), sharing sufferings (3:10), sharing affliction (4:14); see compound entries fellowship_of_the_spirit, fellowship_of_sufferings, partnership_in_gospel, shared_in_affliction for risk-elevated specific occurrences.

Gentleness

Approved rendering: နူးညံ့သိမ်မွေ့မှု
Transliteration: nu-nyan thein-mway-hmu
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: ἐπιείκεια
Category: Christian Living

Visible Christian gentleness/reasonableness toward all; low risk. Philippians 4:5.

Goal Mark

Approved rendering: ရည်မှန်းချက်
Transliteration: yi-hman-chet
Doctrine: Pressing on toward the Goal in Christ
Original: σκοπός
Category: Eschatology

Conveys Christ himself as the single-minded aim of the Christian life; low risk. Philippians 3:14.

Lights In The World

Approved rendering: ကမ္ဘာအလင်းရောင်များ
Transliteration: kabar a-lin-yaung-myar
Doctrine: Sanctification and Working Out Salvation
Original: φωστῆρες
Category: Sanctification

Believers’ visible, radiant witness in a dark culture; low risk. Philippians 2:15.

Paul

Approved rendering: ပေါလု
Transliteration: Paulu
Doctrine: Historical Figures

Established Myanmar Bible proper-name form; author of Philippians (1:1).

Pharisee

Approved rendering: ဖာရိရှဲ
Transliteration: Pha-ri-shay
Doctrine: Righteousness by Faith versus the Law
Original: Φαρισαῖος
Category: Covenant

Transliteration; established Myanmar Bible proper-name-like term for Paul’s former religious pedigree. Philippians 3:5.

Risking Life

Approved rendering: အသက်ကိုပင် စွန့်စား၍
Transliteration: a-thet ko-pin sun-sar-yi
Doctrine: Servanthood and Christian Calling
Original: παραβολευσάμενος
Category: Ministry

Epaphroditus’s sacrificial risk on the Philippians’ behalf, a human echo of Christ’s self-giving in the hymn. Philippians 2:30.

Selfish Ambition

Approved rendering: မိမိအကျိုးရှာမှု
Transliteration: mimi-akyo-shar-hmu
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: ἐριθεία
Category: Church

The opposite disposition to Christ’s self-emptying; low syncretism risk. Philippians 2:3.

Syntyche

Approved rendering: ဆုန်တုခေ
Transliteration: Sondukhay
Doctrine: Historical Figures

Proper name of a believer in the Philippian congregation, 4:2-3.

Thanksgiving

Approved rendering: ကျေးဇူးတင်ခြင်း
Transliteration: kyayzu-tin-chin
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Original: εὐχαριστία
Category: Faith

Standard term; no significant doctrinal risk. Inherited from Romans package; reused exactly for Philippians. Philippians usage: 4:6 (‘with thanksgiving’).

Timothy

Approved rendering: တိမောသေ
Transliteration: Timawthay
Doctrine: Historical Figures

Established Myanmar Bible proper-name form; co-sender (1:1), commended in 2:19-23.

United In Spirit

Approved rendering: စိတ်တစ်လုံးတစ်ဝတည်းဖြစ်ခြင်း
Transliteration: seik ta-loun ta-wa-di phyit-chin
Doctrine: Unity and Humility in the Church
Original: σύμψυχοι
Category: Church

Deep unity of affection among believers; low risk. Philippians 2:2.

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